Achernar hoisted herself up onto the jagged striped rock in front of her. She winced as the remnant heat from the sun emanated from the rock into her paws. The sky above them had gone dark half an hour ago, but clearly that hadn't been enough time for things to cool off. turning back to where she once was she reached out a hand.
"C'mon, it's just over this ridge." She smiled, looking down at the silvery, robust, tsabhua below her.
"I don't need your help, I just need you to show me where." Mink gruffed in between heavy panting. He slapped away Achernar's hand before crouching down and leaping onto the rock she was standing on, nearly falling off in the process.
"You sure? You seem kind of…" She trailed off, before gesturing to him vaguely. Mink huffed but otherwise didn't respond.
"Anyways." She looked ahead to the watering hole in front of them. Nestled in between pale, rocky arches and reflecting the stars and moonlight from overhead. Achernar wished she could stay here forever, but they had work to do.
"Alright, I've been here twice and I haven't seen any nukap here myself, however!" She exclaimed, hopping off of the rock into the rocky soil and walking closer to the watering hole.

"Look." Achernar whispered to Mink. Moving barely green grasses out of the way, revealing muddy hoof tracks embedded into the course dirt. Mink slid past Achernar, circling the tracks before sitting down next to them and examining the soil around them very closely. Achernar started smiling, surely he knew how ridiculous he looked right? But that smiling turned into outright giggling when he put his whole face into one of the larger set of tracks.
"Do you want me to do my job or not?" He growled, picking his face up off of the dirt and looking right at her. If looks could kill she wouldn't be dead, but she definitely wouldn't be laughing this hard right now.

"No, no, I do, but come on, you gotta admit that you look ridiculous." she snorted, trying her best to stop smiling but finding that an impossible task. Mink sighed, looking over at the water's surface before turning back to Achernar.
"I know how it looks but it's the best way to figure out the age of tracks, which I know now by the way! You could at least be a bit grateful in addition to making fun of me." Mink started fidgeting with his hands halfway through the sentence, and turned away to look back at the watering hole by the time he finished. To Achernar he seemed genuinely hurt, maybe a bit angry too, but mostly hurt.
"Hey, Mink, look at me. I'm sorry that I made fun of you, now do you want to tell me about the tracks?" At the mention of the tracks Mink's ears perked up, as he got up he pointed to a few that were more noticeable than the others.
"These tracks are probably a few hours old at the most, they've got clean crisp edges, and the impressions are darker than the soil around them. Out here beyond about three hours in the sun the deeper part of the track starts to turn the same color as the soil around it." Mink explained, pacing around the tracks as he did.
"Alright, so they were here recently, how do we tell what direction they were going? These seem kind of all over the place." Achernar asked, looking down at the tracks. They all criss-crossed and changed direction at what looked to her to be completely random.

"Yeah they are a bit all over the place, but I actually don't think they were heading anywhere. On our way here we didn't see any tracks, and you didn't mention seeing any other than around the watering hole."

"Well you didn't exactly ask, but yes I didn't see any outside of the watering hole. What are you suggesting though, that they evaporated into thin air?"

"No, I- actually just follow me, and keep your voice down." Achernar was about to ask why but decided not to when she saw Mink immediately drop low to the ground and begin slowly slinking to a large pillar on the other side of the pond. She followed him, not entirely sure of what they were doing, at least not until they got closer to the pillar and she heard faint oinking.
"Alright, there's a burrow under this pillar. I don't think all of them are in there but a decent number should be. I'm going to go around to the back where there should be another entrance and flush them out, be ready." Mink whispered, turning to start creeping towards the other side before looking back.
"Achernar does that sound good?" He asked, looking right at her.
"Yeah that sounds good, just make sure to flush them out towards me." Achernar pleaded. Mink nodded then continued onward to the other side of the pillar. Mink disappeared out of her view, and she began to worry when minutes passed with no sign of him or nukap. But all that worry dissipated when she heard a loud bang from the other side and squealing from the burrow. She braced herself and several nukap came into her view. Several nukap, coming into her view, while running straight at her…
"Oh shit."